German GP who killed British pensioner is fined £6,000 and allowed to continue practising

Dr Ubani has been allowed to continue practicing medicine despite being charged for Mr Gray's death

The German doctor who killed a
British man with a lethal dose of painkillers has been fined £6,000 by
medical authorities in his home country.

But Dr Daniel Ubani has not been struck off and is free to continue working in Germany.

Despite the Doctors Chamber, the
equivalent of the UK General Medical Council, saying it fears for
patient safety, it is powerless to ban him while he retains the support
of the local authority in Arnsberg which licenses him.

Arnsberg says it interviewed Ubani last year and was satisfied with his competence.

The German national is already banned from working in the UK.

Doctors Chamber spokesman Markus Wenning said: 'The main problem is that he is still allowed to practise.

'But this administrative court does
not have the authority to withdraw his licence. They can only judge his
behaviour.

'He's been sentenced in a special court for doctors, not a
normal court, because he violated the doctors' code of conduct.

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Ubani, who lives in the former
western German industrial town of Witten, came to the UK in 2008 to earn extra money as a locum.

He was working for an out-of-hours
medical service in Cambridgeshire when he mistakenly gave 70-year-old
renal patient David Gray ten times the safe dosage of diamorphine.

Coroner William Morris ruled the death was ‘gross negligence and manslaughter’ and Ubani was struck off by the GMC in Britain.

Brothers in arms: Stuart (left) and Rory Gray, have been horrified by the ruling that has allowed their father's killer to continue practicing as a doctor

Mr Gray died within minutes at his home in Manea, Cambridgeshire, on 16 February 2008. Coroner William Morris later ruled his death "gross negligence and manslaughter" and issued 11 recommendations to the Department of Health for the improvement of out-of-hours GP services.

An arrest warrant was issued in the UK for him to be extradited to stand trial. But he cut a dubious deal with German prosecutors that allowed him to receive a fine - by post - together with a nine month suspended jail sentence for causing death by negligence.

His ability to work was never questioned despite the fact he was struck off by the GMC in Britain. He refused to attend the inquest into his victim and the medical hearings which barred him from ever working in Britain again.

Mr Wenning added: 'We wanted him struck off.
It is finished because we don't have any legal opportunities to do more.
The local government could get rid of him but they won't. We are
worried still for the safety of patients in Germany.

'We are frustrated by this case, we
are keeping up the pressure for change at federal and state level, at
this stage we can't do any more.'

Dr Ubani's practice in Witten, Germany where he continues to serve as a doctor despite his charge

Now an administrative court in Germany has fined him 7,000 euros (£6,275) for breaking its professional code of conduct and negligence in the death of Mr Gray.

David Gray's sons Dr Stuart Gray, who lives in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, and his brother Rory, who works as a European Space Agency scientist in Germany, have been campaigning to get Ubani struck off in Germany.

They were arrested last year as they heckled Ubani at a medical conference for plastic surgery - Ubani runs a cosmetic clinic as a sideline.

Rory Gray said; 'What is really telling are the quotes from the Doctors Chamber. The Doctors' Chamber, the equivalent of the GMC in Ubani's area, want him struck off but Arnsberg local council, which is responsible for medical licences, refuses to do so.

'This means other EU member states have to recognise automatically doctors' licenses in Germany when non-medically trained local councillors refuse to remove the licence of a doctor found unfit to practise and struck off in the UK, after unlawfully killing a patient and seriously mistreating several others.

'Even when the German medical authorities are saying publicly that he is dangerous and should be struck off in Germany.'

The Arnsberg authority which licences him interviewed Ubani last year and said it was satisfied with his competence.